Four newborn kittens have escaped with their nine lives intact after firefighters rescued them from a pipe under a house.

Pregnant Cleo, the four-year-old tabby, had crept under the kitchen sink in owner Heather Greenall’s house to give birth.

She curled up next to a water main pipe in the cupboard but three of her four kittens took a tumble down an open four-inch utility pipe and were mewing for help when Miss Greenall awoke.

The mum-of-two managed to reach down and save one of the kittens herself but called on firefighters to smash the cupboard and surrounding concrete to retrieve its siblings.